Consumer products, such as, cleansing and conditioning products as well as household consumer cleaning products, have traditionally been marketed in a variety of forms such as bar soaps, creams, foams, sprays, liquids, powders, lotions, and gels. Typically, these products must satisfy a number of criteria to be acceptable to consumers. These criteria include effectiveness, skin feel, mildness to skin, suitability for use in the consumer's household, and appearance. Typically these consumer products comprise a benefit composition in some form.
It is highly desirable to deliver benefit compositions from a disposable substrate. Disposable products are convenient because they obviate the need to carry or store cumbersome bottles, bars, jars, tubes, and other forms of clutter associated with consumer products. Disposable products are also a more sanitary alternative to the use of a sponge, washcloth, or other implement intended for extensive reuse, because such implements can develop bacterial growth, unpleasant odors, and other undesirable characteristics related to repeated use.
However, while disposable articles, which can be easily used by young children, are desirable they have their own problems. Retention in the hand of a user of such disposable articles, especially during vigorous scrubbing, is one such problem. If the washcloth is prone to be dropped during use the user is more concerned with retaining the article in hand instead of actually using the article for its intended purpose.
It can now be appreciated that using consumer products involves many aspects for both the child and the caregiver, especially for the child incapable of reading. Some of these aspects affect children differently, or may not even be a factor for a particular child. It is this uniqueness of each individual child that presents a major challenge for both the child and the caregiver. If any of these aspects are unsuccessful, the child's progress in learning how to, for example bathe or clean properly can be unnecessarily delayed due to numerous failures and frustrations. In the past reusable washcloths and sponges have been made in various shapes, such as puppets and with child appealing graphics, in order to make the use of these products fun and enjoyable. However, these reusable products still suffer from the problems associated with repeated use, i.e., bacterial growth, unpleasant odors, and other undesirable characteristics related to extensive reuse. One the other hand, while disposable products side step this problem of extensive reuse, no effort has been made to make disposable products more appealing to children.
The problem remains that there is no disposable articles, products or system available for children of all ages and sizes, which can be easily handled and the method of utilizing easily understood, by the child. The need also remains for disposable cleaning products which are easy to use, appealing to and suitable for use by children, of different ages, all sizes and/or stages of development. Furthermore, the need remains for an article which a child will desire to use and is retained in a user's hand such that the consumer can focus on the task at hand, namely using the product correctly, without having to be concerned with retaining the article in their hand.